NASAcronyms: How OSIRIS-REx Got Its Name | OSIRIS-REx the Spacecraft vs.Osiris the Egyptian God | Space.com

NASAcronyms: How OSIRIS-REx Got Its Name | OSIRIS-REx the Spacecraft vs.Osiris the Egyptian God | Space.com: "The story of Osiris (the Egyptian) loosely parallels that of OSIRIS-REx (the asteroid mission). As a result of a mean trick involving a bejeweled coffin, Osiris was killed by his evil twin brother. His body was cut up into pieces and dumped in the Nile, and the pieces traveled down the river and spread agriculture all over Egypt.

OSIRIS-REx, Drake explained, will collect samples of regolith that, once brought back to Earth, will be distributed all over the world for scientists to analyze. Those samples may help the world understand the origins of organic materials.

'We were taken by it because it was a nifty name, because it matched what we wanted to do, but also because it matched the mythology a little bit,' Drake said.

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thanks to Stephen McLaughlin